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Consumption situations can be emotionally charged. Identifying the cause(s) of emotions has clear practical import to the understanding of consumer behaviour. Cognitive appraisal theory serves this purpose; however, a consensus has not yet emerged concerning terminology, number of relevant concepts and concomitant construct measurements, and theoretical linkages between constructs. This paper attempts to rectify this shortcoming.

This conceptual paper provides an extant review of emotions literature as it pertains to cognitive appraisals and consumption behaviours. Based on this review an integrative cognitive appraisal theory is advanced that is parsimonious and incorporates similarities across the various appraisal theory perspectives to date.

Four appraisals are proffered that appear capable of implicating specific emotions and their effects on consumer behaviour. The appraisals advanced are outcome desirability that encompasses pleasantness and goal consistency, agency which includes responsibility and controllability, fairness, and certainty. Sample propositions concerning how cognitive appraisals affect information processing extensiveness have also been provided.

First, the paper provides an extant review of cognitive appraisal theories of emotions, which makes transparent the looseness in terminology and differences in theoretical perspectives that currently exist. Second, based on this review the paper advances a unifying theory of consumption appraisals and explore their relevance to marketers. The theory proposed could explain inconsistent findings in the current literature. Third, directions for future research highlighting confounds that should be considered in study designs complete the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a novel framework of consumer confusion based on the appraisal theories of emotions. Extant theoretical and empirical evidence on confusion continues to be vague on the connection between the emotional dimensions and behavioural consequences. The appraisal theories of emotions can help to expand the field of inquiry which is related to the topic of consumer confusion.

A concept-centric review of 112 publications on consumer confusion and research on emotions provides an integrative critical analysis of the nature of confusion and extends the literature. The review demonstrates that past research has advanced the understanding but not sufficiently explained all of the processes implicated in consumer confusion.

On the above grounds, the paper suggests that although confusion is environmentally driven, it can be seen as a dynamic process implicating two levels of consumer appraisals. Uncertainty/lack of understanding, goal inconsistency and motivational state form the basis of confusion; agency attribution and coping potential are, however, shaping the development of subsequent emotions and ultimately the expectations on consumer behaviour. Considered as a dynamic process, confusion has coping and behavioural implications. At the most central level, the importance of agency (or attribution) and coping potential is highlighted and the way these appraisals lead to different emotions and behaviours is discussed.

The paper advances extant consumer decision-making literature and proposes diverse emotions that are associated with the experience of confusion, behaviours that are expected, along with marketing implications and actions required for each of them.

To clarify inconsistencies in the emotion elicitation process and to suggest avenues for advancing emotion research, this study aims to conduct a systematic review of emotion research in the subject area of hospitality and tourism management.

This study analyzes 178 emotion-related articles published in 37 journals from 2004–2019 in the context of hospitality and tourism, providing a systematic synthesis of publication outlets and trajectories, research settings, the conceptualization of emotion, emotion measurement, classifications of antecedents and consequences.

Regarding the elicitation of emotions, many studies ignore the developments in emotion research in the mainstream discipline and still consider external stimuli as the direct causes of emotion. Numerous studies conceptualize customer emotion as positive or negative, which overlooks the nuances between discrete emotions with the same valence. Additionally, emotion scales are largely borrowed from psychology without considering the specific characteristics of the hospitality and tourism context. Methodologically, most studies take a single-measure lens with either a self-report, physiological or expression behavior measure.

The analysis of the literature highlights three main areas for future emotion studies in the hospitality and tourism context.

Previous reviews are narrative and only address specific areas of interest, rendering them incapable of explaining how a systematic literature identification process was conducted. The present systematic review is among the first to provide an overview of emotion studies in hospitality and tourism over a 15-year period. By drawing insights from appraisal theories of emotions, this review addresses common misunderstandings concerning the emotion elicitation process in the current hospitality and tourism literature.

This study aims to examine how the appraisal of both incidental and direct positive other-agency emotions (vs self-agency emotions) enhances brand trust and, subsequently, brand attitudes.

The paper presents three experiments that examine the effect of other-agency emotions (vs self-agency emotions) on brand trust and brand attitudes by both Australian and USA consumers. Studies 1 and 2 compared the effect of self- and other-agency emotions evoked through an irrelevant reflective task. Study 3 used real-world marketing communication to evoke self- or other-pride.

Gratitude (Study 1) and other-pride (Study 2) evoked through an irrelevant, reflective task enhanced brand trust and attitudes for both familiar and unfamiliar brands. The authors replicated these effects using marketing communications that evoked other-pride (Study 3) and showed how these findings can be applied in a marketing context.

There are contradictory findings in the literature on how positive emotions influence brand trust and attitudes. The findings show that other-agency appraisal is a crucial appraisal within a marketing context and reveals why not all positively valenced emotions increase brand trust and brand attitudes. The findings highlight the importance of examining the effects of emotions on brand trust and attitudes beyond the consideration of their valence.

The research provides significant implications for marketers to improve brand trust and brand attitudes through the elicitation of other-agency emotions. The findings also demonstrate that different components of emotions, such as appraisal structure, may influence consumer trust and attitudes towards marketing and branding communications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to empirically demonstrate how other-agency appraisals of emotions can influence consumer brand trust and attitudes in a marketing context.

Coronavirus disease 2019-related fake news consistently appears on social media. This study uses appraisal theory to analyze the impact of such rumors on individuals' emotions, motivations, and intentions to share fake news. Furthermore, the concept of psychological distance and construal level theory are used in combination with appraisal theory to compare toilet paper shortages and celebrity scandal rumors.

Data collected from 299 Taiwanese respondents to 150 toilet paper shortage-related and 149 celebrity gossip-related questionnaires were processed using partial least squares regression and multigroup analysis.

In both cases, surprise is felt most intensely. However, unlike in the celebrity fake news scenario, worry plays a prominent role in driving the altruistic sharing motivation related to the toilet paper shortage rumor. Furthermore, while emotional attributes (basic or self-conscious, concrete, or abstract) serve as a guide for how emotions change with psychological distance, the degree to which an emotion is relevant to the fake news context is key to its manifestation.

This study examines the impact of individuals' emotions on their motivations and intention to share fake news, applying the appraisal theory and the psychological distance concept in a single study to fake news sharing intention. It evaluates the relationship between psychological distance and emotions, revealing that it is not absolute and need not necessarily shift according to psychological distance change; rather, the relationship is context-sensitive.

The purpose of this paper is to further examine the mediation mechanism to account for the influence of brand experience on brand loyalty by integrating the experiential view of consumption and the appraisal theory of emotion.

An onsite interview survey was conducted in 21 stores of four service brands: Burger King, Cold Stone Creamery, McDonald’s and Starbucks Coffee. Confirmatory factor analysis is used for assessing validity and reliability. Structural equation modeling is used for examining construct relationships.

Brand awareness/associations, perceived quality and hedonic emotions mediate the relationship between brand experience and brand loyalty. Hedonic emotions play a powerful mediation role. Moreover, it is the experiential view of consumption rather than the appraisal theory of emotion that plays a dominant role in accounting for the influence of brand experience on brand loyalty.

This research extends previous studies on the relationship between brand experience and brand loyalty by adding hedonic emotions as a powerful affective mediator. Our research also contributes to practitioners by providing strategies for experiential marketing.

There are numerous studies on satisfaction, but not enough on dissatisfaction when its consequences can be harmful. This study aims to examine different unsatisfactory situations during customer–supplier relationships in industrial markets combining the appraisal theory with the critical incident technique to identify potential problems and strategies to minimize their effect.

This research follows an exploratory qualitative approach based on 18 in-depth interviews with managers from business-to-business firms. The information obtained was object of a textual and conceptual analysis using the analytical software ATLAS TI 9.0.

The results show that negative cognitions have greater influence than negative emotions, and those dissatisfied customers may respond by expressing complaints, ending transactional relationships, reporting the other party legally, asking for explanations or continuing commercial relationships, even though they are dissatisfied. This will depend on the severity of the critical incident and the negative cognitions and emotions perceived. Proactivity and understanding of this situation will allow for understanding what specific actions to take to resolve conflicts and mitigate the negative effects among the parties.

This paper focuses on dissatisfaction, instead of satisfaction, in industrial markets through the appraisal theory. Furthermore, it applies the critical incident technique to understand the cognitions and emotions related with dissatisfaction in the commercial relationships. Finally, it provides ideas on what are the main source of dissatisfaction and how to manage them to anticipate and better manage those incidents.

This systematic review synthesizes the recent literature (2010–2020) on hospitality employees’ emotions, affect and moods. This study has three objectives: to clarify the definitions of emotions, affect and moods; to explain how theories are integrated into understanding hospitality employees’ emotions, affect and moods; and to assess how emotions, affect and moods are measured.

Using seven major databases, the authors selected 61 peer-reviewed academic journal articles published in hospitality outlets for review. We based our study on five stages of conducting a systematic review: scoping, planning, identification, screening and eligibility.

Affect is an umbrella term encompassing moods and emotions. Emotions are distinct from emotion-laden constructs, such as emotional labor and emotional intelligence. Theories on conservation of resources, emotional labor and social exchange have been most frequently used to understand hospitality employees’ emotions. However, they overlooked the dynamic nature of emotions when using these theories. Hospitality researchers often used a subset of the positive and negative affect scale and did not discuss back-translation.

Hospitality employees’ emotions lead to far-reaching consequences in attitudes, intentions and behaviors in work and non-work domains. Effective practices (e.g. creating a supportive climate) that help evoke positive employee emotions and reduce negative employee emotions are thus desirable.

Our findings crystallize the understanding of emotions, affect and moods of hospitality employees. We further provide a roadmap for future research on hospitality employees’ emotions. Data triangulation, cross-cultural research and mixed emotions are novel opportunities for future research.

The use of information technology (IT) in the hospitality industry is driven by the need to improve and refine customer service. However, it is unlikely that new IT will be successfully implemented if employees' roles and emotions are overlooked. The purpose of this study is to examine the interplay of negative emotions (anger and fear), coping strategies (venting anger and psychological distancing), perceptions of an IT innovation and intention toward adopting it.

A research model is developed based on the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, coping theory and innovation diffusion theory. An online survey was conducted among employees working for hotels that had deployed a new reservation system, and 234 responses were collected.

The results indicate that employees' negative emotions (anger and fear) have negative and significant effects on their perceptions of adopting a new reservation system through coping strategies (i.e. venting anger and psychological distancing). Furthermore, employees' perceptions of adopting an innovative reservation system have a positive effect on their adoption intention toward the system.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research to address the impact of distinct emotions on IT innovation adoption, as well as explaining the relation between affective and cognitive effects. The findings demonstrate the importance of examining negative emotions in IT innovation adoption. In addition, the model developed in this study confirms that an appraisal tendency approach better specifies the conditions under which different emotions are triggered to predict and explain how emotions relate to IT use through adaptation behaviors when compared with a valence-based approach.

This paper aims to use the cognitive appraisal theory to investigate the effects of brand engagement and materialism on the positive emotions of joy and excitement evoked by a product at different stages of the purchase process.

Two complementary studies were conducted to achieve the research objectives. Study 1 used a longitudinal design, examining the pre-purchase stage and a moment shortly after the purchase. Study 2 adopted a cross-sectional approach, focusing on the post-purchase stage. Relationships among variables were analyzed through hierarchical regression and moderation analyses.

The findings indicate that materialism is not significantly associated with consumers’ positive product-evoked emotions (joy and excitement) before and shortly after purchase. At these two stages, brand engagement predicts positive emotions. In the post-purchase stage, where materialism is weakly related to joy and excitement, a robust positive link exists between brand engagement and positive product-evoked emotions. Moreover, higher levels of materialism reduce the experience of joy and excitement among participants with high levels of brand engagement.

Experiencing joy and excitement is crucial in consumer behavior. However, little is known about the determinants of these emotions in the consumption context, especially concerning internal consumption-related factors and different stages of the purchase process. This paper contributes to the field by shedding light on the role of brand engagement and materialism in the experience of positive product-evoked emotions. The findings provide evidence that brand engagement significantly enhances consumers’ positive product-evoked emotions, highlighting its importance in consumer behavior research.